Talk by Alan Ingram Event

Dr Ingram’s research has been supported by the ESRC, the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy and his work has been published in journals including the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Political Geography, Geopolitics, Antipode, Society and Space and Security Dialogue. In 2013 he curated Geographies of War: Iraq Revisited at UCL, an exhibition that brought together works by artists of British and Iraqi heritages responding to the 2003 war.

Abstract:

His new book, Geopolitics and the Event: Rethinking Britain's Iraq War Through Art, offers a reappraisal of one of the most contentious and consequential events of the early twenty-first century. Drawing on an analysis of dozens of artworks and exhibitions as well as interdisciplinary literatures and debates concerning the anthropocene, decolonial theory and feminist geopolitics, the book advances an original perspective on Britain's role in the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq and maps out new ways of thinking about geopolitics through art. Examining the work of artists, curators and activists in light of Britain's role as colonial power and key player in the international oil system, the book highlights the diverse ways in which the war has been appropriated creatively, while reflecting on the significance, limits and dilemmas of art as a form of critical intervention. In this talk, Dr Ingram will outline the main arguments of the book concerning the importance of approaching Britain’s 2003 Iraq war through art, the genealogical relations between art and geopolitics, and the multiplicity of geopolitical events.

Reviews/endorsements:

'Geopolitics and the Event is an enthralling survey of the response to the Iraq war both by Iraqi and non-Iraqi visual artists that is brimming with insight on every page. I have no doubt this book will become an essential reference for anyone researching or thinking about the catastrophe of the Iraq War and the sanctions years.' — Hassan Abdulrazzak, Iraqi-British playwright

'In this timely and thought-provoking book, Alan Ingram asks us to consider how Britain's war in Iraq has been encountered, appropriated and reworked through art works, by artists and through exhibition practices. Geopolitics and the Event offers us a systematic exploration of how artistic enactments challenge the dominant logics of the Iraq war, and prompts us to rethink this significant geopolitical event.' — Rachel Woodward, Professor of Human Geography, Newcastle University